Join me as I chronicle my journey through the Adriatic, Mediterranean, and Aegean Seas on our 12-night “Mediterranean Empires” cruise aboard Holland America Line’s Nieuw Amsterdam. The next few blog entries will detail the various ports of call we visited during the cruise…

We sailed out of Venice in the middle of a thunderstorm, forcing us to relocate from the open decks at the top of the ship to the our balcony. Though it was dreary out, we still had some beautiful views of the rooftops of Venice as we sailed out of the picturesque city.

The rooftops of Venice

St. Mark’s Square

St. Mark’s Square

The Bridge of Sigh’s

Leaving Venice

Painting of the Nieuw Amsterdam arriving in Venice

May 3 – At Sea

The first full day on the ship was spent at sea. After a breakfast of eggs Benedict on the balcony, I headed off to the gym and then to explore the ship with my girlfriend. The rest of the day was spent lounging around while she enjoyed her spa treatments. This was the first formal night, and we dined in the Pinnacle Grill — one of two specialty restaurants onboard. The Pinnacle Grill is an upscale steakhouse serving prime cuts of meat and amazing appetizers. I ordered the rib eye, which was excellent. Others ordered the filet mignon, and I go to have a few bites. It was simply perfect — one of the best filets I’ve had anywhere. The cost of the meal is $29 per person, and this is WELL worth it, as a comparable meal on land would run well over $150 each. We were pretty much beat after dinner, so we headed back to the suite after a couple of drinks in the piano bar for some good rest before the barrage of ports ensued the following morning.

View of the Adriatic Sea from the Nieuw Amsterdam

Eggs Benedict on my balcony

At Sea on the Adriatic

May 4 – Katakolon, Greece

We awoke to breakfast being delivered in our suite just after the sun came up. As the fog burned off, we watched as the Nieuw Amsterdam docked in the port of Katakolon, Greece. This town is a small fishing village that serves as the hopping off port for Olympia – the site of the ancient Olympic Games. Though several tours were offered through the ship, we opted to head to Olympia on our own. We bought a round-trip train ticket from Katakolon to Olympia for €10 each and arrived in Olympia 40 minutes later. Olympia itself is a cute, clean Greek town with a number of sidewalk cafes, restaurants, and shops. We walked through the town in the middle of a light drizzle to the entrance of the Olympia archaeological site where entrance was €6 apiece. Here, we viewed the excavated ruins of the ancient Olympic Games. The highlight of this site was the original Olympic Stadium where my girlfriend and I ran a lap on the original 440 meter “track” which more resembles a couple of dirt football fields back to back.

Olympia Ruins

Archway entrance to the original Olympic Stadium

The Ancient Olympic Stadium of Olympia, Greece

The ancient Olympic Stadium

More ruins at the site of the ancient Olympics

The Nieuw Amsterdam docked in Katakolon

We were done viewing the ruins after about an hour. Unfortunately, we still had about two and a half hours before our scheduled train was to leave. So, we did the only logical thing – we hopped a bus that we thought may go in the right direction.

The driver spoke pretty much no English, but the only thing he could say was “Pyrgos.” We knew Pyrgos was a city a little more than halfway between Olympia and Katakolon, so we hopped the bus to see how that would work out – the price was right, at about €1.20 each. About 35 minutes later, we disembarked at the bus station in Pyrgos – a large, somewhat dirty town about 10 kilometers from Katakolon. There was another bus to Katakolon an hour later, but we opted for a taxi, who thought he was Sabastian Vettel. This guy was flying down the road at over 140kph, and had us in Katakolon in no time. This was a great adventure to get us back to the ship, and was much more fun than the standard bus tour shore excursion offered by Holland America.

Upon arrival back into Katakolon, we found a nice restaurant called “Arhipelagos Fish Tavern” (this is directly from their business card, which may or may not have had a typo) right on the harbor where we enjoyed a lunch of gyros, fried cheese, greek salad, and a few beers (as well as free wifi). This made for a great early afternoon before we headed back to the ship. We enjoyed champagne and beer in our private hot tub on the balcony as the ship set sail from Katakolon — not a bad way to spend an afternoon!

An Alpha Beer with the Nieuw Amsterdam

Me enjoying sail away from Katakolon

My girlfriend relaxing in our hot tub with Sav Blanc on ice

May 5 – Piraeus (Athens), Greece

I awoke to the hustle and bustle of a very industrial port swarming with ferry activity. This port – Piraeus is the port neighborhood of Athens. Athens is a seemingly never-ending metropolis, and Piraeus is where the sea of white rooftops ends at the Aegean Sea. We again opted against taking a ship-arranged tour, and set out on our own. A cab driver approached us and offered a €20 ride to the Acropolis, which we thought was more than reasonable for the three of us. After about a 20 minute ride through the lightly congested highways and streets of Athens, we arrived at the south entrance to the Acropolis. We ascended the stairs to overlook the amphitheater, and eventually made it up to the famed Parthenon. We walked all around the Parthenon and Temple of Athena, taking dozens of pictures of the recovered ruins and stunning vistas of Athens that were aided by picture perfect weather and blue skies.

The Parthenon at the Acropolis, Athens

The Parthenon

The Parthenon

Parthenon

A view of Athens from the Acropolis

Me in front of the Parthenon

Once we deemed that we’d seen enough, we walked down the north side of the Acropolis, stopping at a café for a few beers in the Anafiotika neighborhood on one of the steep, narrow streets lined with cafes and restaurants. This shady and picturesque street (Mnisikleous Str.) made for a great place to rest the legs, relax with a drink, and check up on e-mail with wifi. We really enjoyed ourselves at Anafiotika over these couple of hours. After this, we headed down to the main shopping area in Athens before stopping for a quick gyro lunch. We decided to take the metro back to Piraeus since it was a straight shot (about 4-5 stops) and only a couple of euros a person. The train station is about a twenty-minute walk from the ship, but that wasn’t a problem at all. Upon arriving back in the room, we all crashed for an hour nap before enjoying the sail out of Piraeus into the deep blue Aegean Sea from the comfort of our balcony.

We met my Aunt and Uncle just past customs at Venice’s Marco Polo International Airport about twenty minutes after we arrived. Due to the location of our hotel in the Cannaregio neighborhood, the Orto Stop on the Alilaguna was by far the easiest location to access. This happens to be the first stop on the Venice’s Alilaguna Orange Line, and cost €15 per person for the 30 minute boat ride.

From the Orto stop, it was a short, three-minute walk to the Boscolo Venezia Hotel. Upon check-in, we were informed that our rooms would not be ready untl 2pm, so we stored our bags at the front desk and headed out to explore Venice.

The Boscolo Venezia is located in the quiet Cannaregio neighborhood – about a 20 minute walk from the crowds of the Realto and San Marco Square areas. We walked around the streets and canals of Venice before stopping for lunch near San Marco Square. We settled on a restaurant with a nice courtyard where we enjoyed pizza and beer – both of which were excellent.

After lunch, the rain started to come down, so we walked back to our hotel. Upon returning to the hotel, we were pleasantly surprised to learn that we were upgraded to a set of two garden villa rooms. The rooms were standard sized, but they each featured massive courtyards situated in a secluded rose garden away from the main building of the hotel. Jet-lagged from the night before, we took a three hour nap before having a nice happy hour out on our patio of the Boscolo Venezia. We had a tasty dinner of pasta and seafood at a local place in Cannaregio– Ristorante Diana and then retired for the evening for some much needed sleep.

After a good ten hours of sleep, we woke up to a fantastic breakfast spread at the Boscolo, which was free due to my Marriott Gold status. The Boscolo runs water taxis four times per day to and from San Marco Square, so we took the 10am taxi through the canals of Venice right to the front steps of St Marks. After taking in the sights and sounds of the San Marco, we proceeded to one of Venice’s most exclusive hotels, The Gritti Palace for a drink on its back patio overlooking the Grand Canal. What a spectacular way to spend the afternoon!

We followed this up with another (expensive / overpriced) drink at a Bar Gelateria Al Todoro, which was on the water near St. Marco Square. At that point, we were ready for a late lunch, so we lost ourselves in the winding alleyways of Venice and found ourselves at Ristorante Alla Conchiglia, a cute little restaurant overlooking a canal for a quintessential Venetian lunch of calamari, pizza, wine and beer. Later in the day, I stopped for about 45 minutes to watch the world go by in a nice plaza near the Rialto Bridge while my girlfriend shopped in some of the great boutiques. We took a nice, afternoon stroll back to the hotel to have a continued happy hour on our wonderful patio at the Boscolo. Later on that evening, we took a short walk to a local seafood restaurant for an excellent dinner at Ostaria da Rioba.

After another glorious night of sleep, we awoke to a rainy Venice morning – and it was cruise day! We packed all our things after a short breakfast and met a water taxi at the Boscolo pier on the Lagoa just a few feet away from our room. In less than twenty minutes, we were at the Cruise Ship Terminal ready to board our cruise on Holland America Line’s Nieuw Amsterdam.

Thoughts on Venice…

I absolutely loved Venice. It’s such a magical city. It’s the only city that I can think that is purely a pedestrian city (with the exception of the boats and gondolas in the canals). We thoroughly enjoyed just losing ourselves in the winding streets and alley-ways of the city, sampling the incredible Italian cuisine, and taking in some of the sights in one of the most picturesque cities you’ll find anywhere.